


Kaleidoscope

by Thea_Bromine



Series: Kaleidoscope [7]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: M/M, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-30
Updated: 2014-01-30
Packaged: 2018-01-10 15:17:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1161219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thea_Bromine/pseuds/Thea_Bromine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes you give everything a shake, and when it settles down, it’s different. The same, but different.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In Which Giles Persuades Mélisande to Look Differently at What She Has Done

He had been a Watcher far too long to miss the movement in the shadow; even if he almost never worked in the field now, his reflexes were still sharp enough to spot a threat. It wasn’t, when he looked more closely, much of a threat: threats didn’t generally wear tiger-stripe pyjamas and fluffy slippers.

“Come out, please.”

She was tiny; he knew her by sight, and a moment’s thought brought her name to mind.

“Mélisande, isn’t it?” She was ten, he believed, but she looked younger, seven at most. It was disturbing how many of the girls arrived undernourished and undersized. “What are you doing here? Isn’t it past your curfew? And this is not one of the places you girls are allowed to be.”

The eyes were enormous, and scared. Her head moved a fraction: a nod and a terrified squeak.

“So why are you here?”

“Mr Giles... you mustn’t spank Xander because it wasn’t his fault, it was mine!”

He recognised all the words individually; it was just in combination that they made no sense whatsoever.

“I, I, I beg your pardon?”

It made no more sense when she said it a second time.

“I think I can promise you that I’m not intending to spank Xander.” That sounded suitably reassuring. Then he had to go and spoil it. “I’m not very clear on why you think I might?”

That was obviously wrong: her lip wobbled ominously and whatever she said was so garbled that between her accent and the impending tears, he could make nothing of it.

“Yes, right, um, calm down, Mélisande. I think I must be missing something that’s happened, but come and you can tell me about it and we’ll see what can be done to fix it. Don’t cry.” It was a vain exhortation. Once a sob escaped her, she could do nothing to hold back the ones that followed, although he could see that she was trying. “All right, sweetheart, come here. Don’t worry, whatever it is, we’ll sort it out.” He held out a hand and she shrank back a little; he frowned slightly and she shrank again. He backed down the stairs again to the landing and leaned over the banister. “Anybody in the kitchen?”

Another girl – no, this one was a young woman – came out to the door below and looked up at him. “Mr Giles?”

“Rachel, would, would you do something for me? Would you, first of all, run over to the girls’ block and tell whoever is on dormitory duty that Mélisande is over here with me? She’s upset about something; I’ll bring her back when I’ve sorted it out, but I, I imagine they’re looking for her by now. And if you could find Xander Harris after that and ask him to come up, I’d be grateful.”

“Sure thing, Mr Giles, no problem.”

“You don’t, you don’t happen to know of anything that might have upset the child, do you?”

“She’s not on my rotation, Mr Giles, she’s on Xander's. Don’t think I’ve ever spoken to her. Not heard anything out of the ordinary, though. I’ll get over there now, and I’ll find Xander for you.”

“Thank you.” He went back up to where the child by now was sitting on the stairs and weeping silently; he didn’t try to engage her, simply bent and picked her up. She didn’t weigh half enough, he thought again, although she was hugely improved on the waif she had been when she had arrived. He carried her inside his tiny flat and left the door ajar for Xander, sitting down on the sofa and settling the girl on his lap. A minute later he squirmed out of his jacket and wrapped it round her, smiling to himself at the memory, and then just cuddled her until she calmed.

“Warm enough? That’s right, don’t cry any more. Whatever it is, we’ll sort it out, it’ll be all right. Everything’s going to be all right, sweetheart, I won’t let anything bad happen to you.” She was still trembling; he produced his handkerchief and carefully dried her face. “Blow. And again. That’s a good girl.”

That was patently wrong. “I’m not good! I was bad and you’ll be cross and it wasn’t Xander's fault!”

“Then I shan’t blame Xander for it,” he assured her agreeably. “How bad were you?”

She gave him a look of abject misery. “Dreadfully.”

“Good Lord. Am I going to be very cross?”

A nod.

“Hm. Does it involve an apocalypse? I do tend to get cross when the girls trigger an apocalypse.”

Small shake of the head. “Good. If there’s no apocalypse, it probably doesn’t count as _dreadfully_ bad.”

“Giles? Rachel said one of the girls was here?”

“Ah, Xander, thank you for coming. Mélisande tells me that she’s been dreadfully bad, and she thinks that I’m going to be very cross. The idea of the Senior Watcher being cross is obviously rather frightening, but she had to come and talk to me about it so that I would understand that it wasn’t your fault. I’ve promised so far that I won’t spank you for it.” He allowed his own limpidly innocent glance to cross Xander's look of hastily controlled amusement; these days, Xander had his own display, just as telling as Giles’ spectacle cleaning, and Giles watched as Xander rearranged the elastic of his eye-patch and straightened the leather. “We’ve also established that it’s not an apocalypse, which is very satisfactory. So, on the understanding that I’m _not_ going to spank you, I’m just wondering what either of you has done that would make her think I might?”

“No, Mr Giles, you don’t _understand_! Xander didn’t do _anything_ , it was me, and he didn’t _know_ about it so you mustn’t spank him for it!”

Xander, seeing that Giles was losing control of his mouth, decided to help, although in Giles’ opinion, Xander's version of ‘help’ had always been a little unreliable. “Mel, I’ve known Mr Giles for years and years, since I was sixteen. Since the days when there was only one Slayer, in Sunnydale. If he says he isn’t going to spank me, then he won’t. I promise you, he has never spanked me except when I really, _really_ deserved it.”

Opinion was divided on that, thought Giles. Only ever the once, and Xander thought he’d asked for it and Giles thought he hadn’t, but Mélisande seemed a little reassured.

“Well then, one of you needs to tell me what’s been going on, and since apparently Xander doesn’t know, Mélisande, that leaves you.”

He was relieved to see that this time she turned towards him, burying her face in his chest, rather than shrinking away again. Perhaps he wasn’t totally terrifying after all.

“I can’t do my kicks.”

He looked over her head at Xander, who shrugged and made a ‘not a clue’ face.

“This is in your training?”

Small nod.

“I wouldn’t myself have said that it counted as dreadfully bad? You’ve only been here, what, a month? Six weeks? I don’t think anybody’s expecting you to be fully trained yet. Or if they are, I’m not, and I’m in charge so what I say goes.”

“But I said I could.”

“Yes? Sit up and explain it to me, chick. I, I’m sure I’m being very stupid but I don’t understand.”

“Xander and Faith taught us last week and then he said we were all to go away and practise and I did but I couldn’t do them. And then this week he asked if we’d practised and we all said yes and he asked if we could all do them and I lied! I said I could! Because everybody else said yes and then we started something else and I could do it and it didn’t matter any more and then yesterday we had a competition with the girls from one of the other groups, they were the vampires and we were the Slayers and we had to make three teams and hunt them and the team I was in got trapped in the basement and we needed to fight our way out, we needed kicks and I couldn’t do them, I kept getting knocked down and we all got killed by the vampires and it was my fault because I couldn’t do my kicks so I got killed so Annis didn’t have anybody at her back so that was my fault and not at all Xander's because he asked and I told him I could!”

Years of dealing with Buffy and Xander allowed him to break this into manageable pieces by the insertion of mental punctuation. “Ah, I _see_. Well, I see some of it. You can’t do your kicks yet and you think I might be cross about that? And you think Xander might be cross about it too?”

Oh, apparently the age at which they learned the eye-roll was much lower than he had thought. “No!” How did they manage to get that into two syllables? ‘No-wuh!’ filled with such contempt for his limited understanding. “Xander's never cross like that, he’s only cross when we break things.”

“Which is most days,” put in Xander, unhelpfully; Giles glared at him and he grinned unrepentantly.

“But it’s not Xander's fault that I can’t do my kicks so you ought not to be cross with him for it.”

“Yes, well, that, that seems quite reasonable. Xander, you’re excused all blame because Mélisande can’t do her kicks.” Xander made a faint noise which Giles recognised as him about to have an unmanageable fit of the giggles; he pulled out his patented ‘control yourself or die’ glower and Xander swallowed twice and straightened his face. The glower didn’t appear to be helping Mélisande, though; she swallowed too, but he felt her tremble.

“All right then; let’s talk about what you did. Because I think, Mélisande, that you did do something which was bad, but I don’t think it’s the thing you think it was.”

“Way to go with the clarity of expression,” murmured Xander; Giles sent him another glare, and then turned a gentler look on the child on his knee, setting her a fraction further away so that she could look at him.

“Tell me what you think I’ll be cross about.”

“I can’t do my kicks.”

“Why do you go training every day with the other girls?”

“To learn to be a Slayer.”

“To learn. So if you need to learn it’s because there are things you don’t know, isn’t it?”

She nodded.

“And things you can’t do. And Xander and Faith and the others who train you are showing you how to do the things you can’t do. Have you started with throwing weapons yet?”

She nodded, wide eyed; Xander added cautiously, “Not very much, though. Really just identification of the weapons and how to carry them safely.”

“Did you know that we don’t let Charis fight with a shuriken? She’s the best quarterstaff fighter we have here, she’s very good at hand to hand fighting and we never let her have anything she has to throw because she can’t hit any target smaller than an aircraft carrier. It’s not a secret, she thinks it’s funny. We had half a dozen people trying to teach her; I tried myself. She can’t do it. Xander won’t even go in the training gallery when she’s there.”

“Behind her! I was _behind_ her and she hit me! I’m not risking my other eye!”

“Am I cross with Charis?”

The child considered this for a moment and shook her head uncertainly.

“But she can’t fight with a throwing weapon. So am I going to be cross if you can’t manage kicks?”

The shake of the head was even more tentative this time.

“Now actually, I think the chances are that the only reason you can’t do your kicks is that you need to practise more. You’re not very big yet; you’ll grow bigger and stronger and probably you’ll find that you _can_ do your kicks. Everybody has something they’re good at and something they aren’t so good at, so some of the girls will choose to fight with swords and some with axes, and some with something else. You need to be _able_ to fight with as many things as possible, but eventually, you’ll find out which ones work best for you. Lucy can fight with an axe, but she’s tall and thin, so she’s better with a sword. Rachel is stronger than Lucy, so she can carry an axe and use it for hours without getting tired, but she hasn’t got the reach for a sword. She can use one, but she’s better with something else. Maybe when you’re old enough to go out on patrol, you’ll find that you’re not an open ground fighter who kicks and spins; maybe you’ll be a sneak-up-on-them fighter instead, specially if you don’t grow very big. We don’t know yet so you have to learn as much as you can. You’re going to do your practice and learn to kick as well as you possibly can, and if that’s not as well as some of the others do it, well, you’ll be better than them at something else.

“But the point, honey, is that if you can’t do something the first time you try, you mustn’t be afraid to say ‘I can’t do that _yet_ ’ and try some more. Nobody will ever be cross because you don’t get it first time. Or second time, or third time. Maybe you can’t do it yet because you aren’t big enough. Not being able to do it isn’t bad.”

He stopped to draw breath and let the child digest that.

“What you did that was wrong, Mélisande – and it was _very_ wrong – was that you hid it from Xander. Xander didn’t know that you couldn’t do the kicks. If he had known, he could have come and watched you practise, and maybe he would have been able to tell you why it wasn’t working. Or maybe he could have thought of different exercises to make you strong the way you need to be before you learn to kick. Or maybe he would have thought to ask Terhenetar to come and watch, because she fights like a dancer, and she might have been able to give you some advice.

“But you didn’t tell Xander, did you?”

He waited for the shamed shake of the head. “That was the bad thing. Not telling him would have been bad enough, but you _lied_. You told him you could do it, and he believed you. He trusted you, and you let him down.” From the corner of his eye, he saw Xander shift and open his mouth; Giles glared hard at him, and Xander shut his mouth again and sat still.

“What happened because you hadn’t told him?”

She just looked at him, all eyes and quivering mouth.

“When you did your team exercise, he put you with people who were counting on you – and because he didn’t know, he couldn’t put you somewhere you could use what you _did_ know, what you _could_ do. If Xander had known that you weren’t an open ground fighter, he could have put you in a different group and used you differently. You’re small so he might have put you with one of the bigger girls who could lift you and told you to do the reconnaissance from up high. So because you lied to Xander, he couldn’t use you properly, and your team wasn’t working properly, and that means it wasn’t just Xander you let down, was it? It was Annis and the other girls too. And this time, it was just an exercise and nobody really got hurt – but when you’re bigger you’ll be going on patrol. What would have happened if it had been a real patrol?”

“Annis would be dead. And Reyyan. And me.”

“And maybe some of the others as well.” He let that sink in; the tears were coming faster now, but he hardened his heart. This child wouldn’t die for thoughtlessness or poor training, not if he could prevent it; she was desperately young to be told that she carried other lives in her hands, but none of them could afford to take the burden lightly. “Three dead Slayers because you lied to Xander?” That required another glare to keep Xander silent. He put on his sternest voice. “I don’t _ever_ want to hear that you’ve done something like that again, is that clear?”

He almost lost his composure when he realised that Xander, nearly as wide-eyed as Mélisande, was nodding too; he had to bite the inside of his cheek hard to keep himself from laughing, but the child on his knee was weeping in good earnest now. He gathered her back up close. “All right, that’ll do, chick. Shhh, stop crying.”

She hiccupped twice. “I didn’t mean to be bad!”

Xander got in ahead of him. “You’re not bad, Mel. You _did_ something bad, but _you_ aren’t bad. It’s different.”

“You listen to your Watcher,” Giles admonished gently. “He’s quite right. What you did was bad but that’s all finished. _You_ are not bad. Coming to tell me about it when you realised that you’d done something you shouldn’t, that was good. And brave too; I think you’ll make a fine Slayer when you’re older.” He kissed her on the forehead. “Now listen, chick, I want you to go and tell Xander that you’re sorry, and promise him you won’t do that again.” He set her on the floor and she scurried to Xander, who swept her up into a hug; Giles got up, rather stiffly, and went into the tiny kitchen which was all his flat afforded. By the time he came back with two cups, Xander had moved to the couch and Mélisande was sitting beside him, tucked under his arm.

“Chocolate, Mélisande. Drink it up and then I’ll take you back to your dormitory. And I’ve made one for Xander as well, because I knew he would complain if I didn’t.”

“Yay! And with marshmallows and everything! He only keeps them because I like them,” he confided to Mélisande. “He tells everybody that the Senior Watcher is all fierce and strict, but we know better, don’t we?”

“Yes, _thank_ you, Xander, I’m sure it does my reputation no end of good to have you telling the girls that I’m a pushover.”

“I don’t tell them that! I tell them that if Mr Giles yells at them, they’ll know they’ve been yelled at! I tell them that I’ve been yelled at by _experts_ but Mr Giles yells better than anybody I know. And he glares, too. It’s a really scary glare. But when he’s finished being mad at you, he’s really finished, he doesn’t yell any more later. I used to bring him doughnuts when he’d finished yelling at me.”

“He thought that if I had my mouth full, I couldn’t yell at him. I had to stop him in the end; if I’d eaten a doughnut every time I yelled at Xander, I’d have got fat.”

“Huh. And I suppose that if I say you _are_ fat...”

“Not even Mélisande begging will save you from being spanked.”

“’S’not fair. Stop giggling, Mel, you’re supposed to be on my side. It’s not fair.”

“I think it’s fair and I’m the Senior Watcher so what I say goes. Finished, Mélisande? Come on then, I’ll walk you back over and make sure nobody’s going to say anything about you being out of bed this late. Another time, if you need to talk to me, you don’t have to sit on the stairs and wait, you can ask Xander and he’ll find out when I’m home, or you can come to my office during the day. If you need to, just come. You can keep my jacket on to keep you warm until we get over, but I have to tell you, even I can see that as a fashion statement, that’s not going to work. Xander, wait until I come back, will you?”

He came back with his jacket over his arm, kicked the door shut and glared at Xander. “Make me tea. Now. I know you know how. Heat the pot and everything, none of your teabag in a mug rubbish. There wasn’t a single _one_ of the girls in bed, not even the very little ones, because the story was out that Mélisande had done something, like, _so_ _awful_ – apparently she’s been upset since yesterday – and the Senior Watcher had found out and was _really mad_ about it. They were waiting to see if I brought her back or sent her home in disgrace or just disposed of the body. Opinion appeared to be divided over whether I would stake her or put her on bathroom cleaning, like, _for_ _ever_. The something awful seems to have varied from triggering the apocalypse to breaking my favourite tea cup, which would apparently be worse. If you don’t stop laughing, the one on bathroom cleaning will be you. Where’s my tea?”

“It’s coming, it’s coming, but I know that if I don’t let the water boil, you’ll complain.”

“Damn right. Never could get a decent cup of tea in America because they wouldn’t let the sodding water _boil_.”

“Are there any cookies?”

“Oh, not content with marshmallows, he wants biscuits as well? Top cupboard, red tin. And then, Xander, perhaps you would like to explain to me why that ridiculous infant believed that because _she_ had been naughty, I would be intending to spank _you_?”


	2. In Which Giles Warns Xander to Think Differently About What He Does

Xander leaned his head against the cupboard door and laughed. “That’s Faith’s fault.”

“Do share.”

“Take your tea then. It was about three months ago? Faith’s group were doing some exercise and they made a complete mess of it. You know how sometimes with a new group, once it starts to go wrong it just gets worse and worse and worse?”

“Do I ever. There’s soda in the fridge.”

“And the man says he’s not a pushover, yet he has... five cans of soda in his fridge. Giles, have you _ever_ drunk soda?”

“Tonic goes in gin. Lemonade goes in Pimms. Ginger goes in cheap brandy. I’m told that stuff you drink can be put in rum but I don’t like rum. None of it is worth drinking on its own. Yes, all right, I drank it when I was twenty. Unlike you, I grew out of it.”

“So you keep it for me, together with the marshmallows.”

“You needn’t tell everybody. And stop trying to change the subject: Faith and her group exercise?”

“It ended up in a complete...” Xander waved vaguely so as to convey total chaos. “And Faith yelled at them. Oh, afterwards she went through it step by step, told them where they had messed it up and what they should have done, but the first bit, she just yelled. Not unreasonably, either – this wasn’t just a couple of bad judgments, this was completely forgetting _everything_ they had ever been told. She ripped them all a new one and then said something about how they should be grateful that it had been her and not you because you would have been even less impressed than Faith had been. One of the girls was brave enough – or stupid enough, take your pick – to make some remark about you not coming into it because you didn’t have anything to do with the training.”

“And maybe I ought to rethink that policy...”

“Giles, you _can’t_. There aren’t enough hours in the day. You can’t make yourself responsible for the new girls _and_ the ones who are old enough to be out, _and_ do all the finance stuff and the bookwork and the admin and the planning and the research and...”

“Yes, all right, all right. I still don’t see...”

“Well, Faith let go at them again. They needn’t think that just because you only work with the senior Slayers, you don’t know what’s going on. Apparently you have spies everywhere, you know everything, and you talk regularly to all of us about our girls and what they’re doing.”

“Well, I, I do try.”

“Yeah. But Faith made some vague remark about the fact that you’re always on our case – which you are – and that you hold us responsible for what our girls do – which you do – and said that she didn’t feel any need to get a spanking from the Senior Watcher just because her team didn’t pay attention to what she told them. It was just a throwaway remark, you know? And the girls recognised it as one: that Faith was ticked, that she thought you would be ticked, and that you would be ticked not just with them but with her as well. Only their next exercise was a joint one – six of Faith’s older girls, six of mine, and mine got canned. We might as well not have shown up. And one of her girls said to her, ‘well, it’ll be Xander who gets the spanking from Mr Giles this time’ and then it just took off. You know what the kids are like with their catchphrases.”

“I do. All the time in Sunnydale, I, I don’t think I ever understood more than three-quarters of what any of you said.”

“Right back atcha. But now I’m baffled coming _and_ going, because not only do I not understand you, I don’t understand them either. Anyway, that’s part of the current shorthand: the girls have to watch what they do because if they screw up it’s the team leader who carries the can for it, all covered by reference to Faith or Xander or whoever getting a spanking from Mr Giles. Trouble is, sounds like Mel took it seriously.”

Giles smiled into his tea. “Poor child. Don’t tease her about it, Xander. If she really believed it, then she probably thought that she would be saving your hide at the cost of her own. It was very brave of her to come and confront me.”

“Yeah, ‘cause you’re so scary – not! No! Don’t do the eyebrow thing! I take it back! Scary Giles. Scary Giles who wraps a miserable child in his jacket and makes cocoa for her.”

“Well, what would you expect me to do?”

“Oh, I know, you have form, specially with the jacket... Giles, do you ever... you like the little ones, don’t you?”

“I like them all, except when they play their music so loudly that my brain leaks out through my ears.”

“I know, but it was my girls on kitchen detail last week, unpacking the groceries. Giant chocolate buttons? That wasn’t on the list. And I saw the receipt too: that didn’t come out of the kitchen budget. You’ve been buying candy for them.”

“If you tell anybody...”

“I know, laundry detail again. But... years back, they accused you of behaving more like a father than a Watcher. And... well, there’s something in that, maybe?”

Giles considered. “Maybe now, with these girls,” he conceded. “When they accused me of it first? I... I don’t know. I don’t actually think so. Buffy, maybe. Maybe. Faith? I didn’t know her well enough until recently, so no. You and Willow? I don’t think so. Certainly I thought of you – think of you – as my family now, but not, not as my children.” He set his cup aside. “You in particular... I was always conscious that you needed a father-figure more than any of them, and I couldn’t be it. Well, no, ‘always’ is the wrong word. I’m ashamed of how much I missed early on, Xander. For a Watcher, I saw disgracefully little.”

“I wasn’t what you were watching. God knows, your To Do list was big enough without sticking ‘Parent Xander Harris’ on it.”

“True, but that doesn’t excuse me. Somebody needed to parent Xander Harris, and as a decent human being I should have seen what you needed. And once I did see it... well, if your own parents weren’t going to do it, I ought to have stepped up.”

“Giles, don’t beat yourself up. Once you saw it, you gave me...”

“I gave you a burden. Pretty much as soon as I recognised you as an individual, Angelus happened and I dumped the burden of supporting me on your shoulders. And after that, the father-figure question didn’t arise because I needed you too much as an adult to be able to think of you as a child. Which is shameful.”  

“Now see, that’s not how I remember it. I remember... yeah, sure, a year maybe of wanting you to notice me? And not knowing how to make it happen. I’ll say I might have been looking for a father-figure then. And then you did notice me, and... I’ll tell you something. I’ll tell you something which is ridiculously sentimental. What have you got left from Sunnydale?”

“Bugger all. I’m not sure I have anything, actually. Except you and Buffy and Dawn and Willow and Faith, which is everything, and if you’ve got something more sentimental than that, I’d like to hear it.”

Xander fiddled with his eye-patch. “I’ve got a key to your apartment.”

Giles stared. “Still?”

“Still. I think it’s the only thing I’ve got, yeah, apart from you and Buff and the others. The keyring fell to bits in the end and you left, you went home, and by then you’d probably forgotten that I had a key because I don’t think I ever used it. But it lived in my pocket for years and then... that last day? I dunno why but I put it on a cord around my neck. I reckoned it would bring me luck. Maybe it did. How dumb is that? The door is gone, the apartment is gone, the town is gone, and the key was around my neck. I – there’s a box of stuff under my bed now and the key’s in it. That wasn’t a burden you gave me, Giles. You gave me a place to go, a refuge, and then, yeah, Angelus happened and that was... that sucked. Giles, how did we get through that? How did you?”

Giles shook his head, unconsciously massaging his fingers. “What else was there to do?”

“Yeah. But see, you gave me my place then. You were the first – the _only_ adult who reckoned I was good for anything. I don’t think any of us were children any more by then. Maybe we weren’t of legal age but we were all grown up. And what you gave me then – you probably don’t even remember.”

“I think I probably do,” said Giles softly.

“You told me that you couldn’t do it without me. That you needed...”

“A wingman.”

“Yeah. And that blew the father-figure thing right out of the water because you were treating me as a grown up. As if I was important. As if what I could do was as important as what Buffy did. Different but important.”

“Christ. What a responsibility to put on...”

“To put on an adult. But see, Giles, what you see as giving me a burden, I see as you giving me your trust. Nobody had done that before. And... can I bring up the incident in the library again?”

Giles looked suspicious. “Which particular incident in the library?”

“Yeah, the one you’re thinking about.”

“Oh, God.”

“You apologised to me.”

“Well, I...”

“Giles, _nobody_ had ever done that before. General rule of thumb: Xander is in the wrong. Half the reason I argued with you? I couldn’t get my head around a grown up saying ‘Xander is not in the wrong, I am’. Yeah, sure, sometimes I did good, and sometimes I got praise for it, but I don’t recall anybody else _ever_ saying that they had done wrong by me and that they were sorry. Not a grown up.”

“Good Lord.”

“And it just seemed a very... it didn’t feel like grown up Giles speaking to kid Xander. It felt like we were... maybe not equals, because you were the boss, you were leading and I was following, but I had a proper place. You were flight leader and I was your wingman.”

“Nearest I ever got to being a pilot.”

“And can I just say, with your eyesight? Just as well.”

“How did we get here from that ridiculous child this evening?”

Xander laughed. “Just me thinking that you looked so like a daddy. Wondering if you regretted not getting the family thing for real, because honestly? You would make a wonderful dad.”

Giles glared. “And what does that make you?”

“I am secure in my own sexuality. I can be Mom. Or Dad. Or weird Uncle Xander. Hey, Giles, why don’t you date?”

“Because, as you’ve just pointed out, I have a house full of children. It’s just that none of them is mine. And because I’m too old.”

Xander scoffed. “Don’t give me that. You look good, you’re fit, you’re smart. You could bring us home a nice Mom.”

“Any woman intelligent enough to interest me would take one look at the set-up here and run screaming into the night. If you think we need a nice mother, why don’t you look for one, rather than trying to persuade me to do it?”

“Damn. He sees through my cunning plan.”

“I do.”

There was a moment’s companionable silence and then Xander said more cautiously, “Seriously, though, Giles, why don’t you date?”

Giles sighed. “Because I really am too old, Xander. I’m too old for the necessary deception involved in dating somebody who doesn’t know what we do here, and I’m much, much too old to date somebody who does know. The Watcher families always tended to marry into each other – which was good in some ways because it concentrated the abilities, and bad in others because you got inbred pillocks like the Wyndham-Pryces. But we tended to marry each other because there was nobody else we _could_ marry. My, my experiences with women once I became a Watcher...”

“Yeah, I get that,” said Xander hastily. “But come on, Giles, you can’t think we don’t know that you, um...”

“That I um?” enquired Giles dryly. “I assure you, I haven’t ummed in years.”

“Yes, you have.” Xander was refusing to be daunted. “I saw you. At Maxim’s.”

“Ah. I wondered if you had.”

“You saw me? Why didn’t you come over?”

“Because I was fairly certain that whatever you were looking for, I wasn’t it, and I didn’t want to cramp your style.”

“Or you didn’t want me to cramp yours?”

“I don’t have one... Xander... I, I, I...”

“Stammering _and_ cleaning his spectacles. The Senior Watcher is going to talk about sex.”

“Yes I am, actually,” snapped Giles. “And you would be well advised to pay attention unless you want to end up where I am, which is picking up casual liaisons in gay bars when I really can’t stand the loneliness any longer!”

Xander was silenced. Giles sighed. “I’m sorry, but... You know how old I am, Xander. My chance of a serious relationship has probably gone. Like I said, how could I explain it to somebody who wasn’t already involved? I just think that, that you should be aware that, that the whole Watcher/Slayer setup has changed so much in my lifetime... I know that you’ve had relationships with men as well as women. You wouldn’t have been in Maxim’s otherwise. And if that’s, if that’s what you want, well... I don’t know. I don’t know where the next generation of Watchers is coming from, Xander. I don’t know if they’ll turn up from the old Watcher families again. I don’t know if you’ll find a companion that way. If you’re still interested in women, just be careful. You know what the lifespan of a Slayer used to be, and we’re doing better but I still wouldn’t say it was good. You’re young enough still to have a relationship with the older girls without it being totally inappropriate; I’m not. I suppose... I suppose I’m just trying to warn you... I don’t want you to end up where I am but I have no idea of what you could do to prevent it. Yes, I can go to Maxim’s. Yes, I can get laid. Still. Don’t know how much longer that will last. And I can’t do it too often without being known as the creepy old bloke with the scars. There are other places, less salubrious, and I’m, I’m, that’s not really what I want, not what I’ve wanted for a long time. I’m too old for that now, that meaningless fuck where you don’t even exchange names. But sometimes I end up so desperate... not for the sex but for the contact, and the sex will do as a substitute. I can’t stay the night with somebody now; I can’t bring somebody here. I would give my eye teeth for a lasting relationship, not for the sex, but for, for, for somebody there when I wake up in the morning, for somebody to be there when I come in at the end of the day... I don’t want you to end up the same way – but I have no idea of how you could stop it.”

“Jeez, Giles, way to go with the total depression all over.”

“Sorry. But you asked, you know. You asked if I regretted not getting the family, and well, yes, in some ways I do. Come to that, what sort of demon are you currently dating?”

“Oh, that was below the belt. I haven’t dated a demon in about six months. Nowadays I... well, there is a guy. Third time lucky, yeah?”

Giles glanced over at him. “Third time?”

“Two before who definitely weren’t demons but just didn’t work out. The first one, guy called David Rogers.”

“Nice, non-demonic name.”

“Yeah. Trouble was, it wasn’t so much a name, more a mission statement. I mean, yeah, I know, people active on the gay scene, not always as completely exclusive as... but his idea of exclusive was that there was nobody else actually _in_ the bed with us at any time.”

“Ah. This isn’t what you, what you...”

“I like a guy to remember my name when we’re dating. Or a girl, no sexist name-remembering policies for Xander.”

“It is generally considered good form,” agreed Giles solemnly.

“Yeah. Then there was a girl. Not a demon either. Not... actually, Giles, not anything very much and that sounds really horrible, because it’s not like I’m a great catch. Pretty. Not freaked out by the eye-patch and whoa, a whole lotta them are.”

“I believe you. The scars don’t necessarily go down well, either.”

“And they need explanations. And training with the girls, so the regular bumps and bruises, _not_ easy to explain away.”

“When you get to be Senior Watcher, that passes, by and large.”

“Huh. Well, Jess, managing the eye-patch. Not managing... a bit vanilla, O.K.?”

Giles tried not to laugh, and considered a polite way to answer. “Nothing wrong with vanilla.”

“Nothing at all. But at this point, if we were drinking, I would tip my glass and mention Anya. Because, and I can’t believe I’m saying this to you when I’m stone cold sober, except that you already know, but Anya and vanilla, not so much.”

“It tended to be mentioned.”

“Huh. I had trouble with how much of my sex life was apparently open for discussion.”

“Xander, _I_ had trouble with how much of your sex life was apparently open for discussion.”

“There were things I tried with Anya which I am never trying again. Not that the trying was a problem: you try, you like or you don’t like, no big. But there were other things where I thought, yeah, that’s fun. And... maybe it’s too much time spent hanging around with Slayers, and the adrenaline rush, but the plain vanilla? Great most of the time and then one day you think... maybe _you_ don’t. You gonna stick your fingers in your ears and go ‘la-la-la’, Giles?”

“Xander, I did the sex and demon-raising thing. And I was perhaps more on-side with your friend David and the non-exclusivity when I was twenty.”

“Yeah, I forgot... you telling me you did the three in a bed thing?”

“Um...”

“You did! You’re polishing your spectacles! You did... what’s it like?”

“The sex is all right but actually, I wouldn’t have said that it was any better than ‘all right’. I wouldn’t do it again, it’s unnecessarily complicated, and somebody always feels that they’ve done more than their share of the work and got less than their due by way of reward, specially when you get to more than three. It doesn’t make up for the quarrelling afterwards about the space in the bed and whose elbow is in whose eye. One of my scars isn’t down to battling the powers of darkness, it’s down to being pushed out of bed onto somebody else’s car keys.”

“ _More_ than three?”

“Unnecessarily complicated.”

“Oh. Right. I can pass on that one then. But some of the others... I’m not talking swinging from the chandeliers here, which is just as well, because we don’t have a chandelier, and having done most of the plastering myself I’m telling you, we haven’t got the ceilings to take a chandelier, but a little role-play, a little bit of something... not really out of the way but...”

“Feathers but not chickens?”

“Yeah. And Jess? Vanilla right through. Thought keeping her shoes on in bed was dangerously adventurous. Not fair to compare her to a demon, unless there’s a demon of distressingly normal?”

“I’m not aware of one. So you want a small amount of kink, but exclusivity. And your current... ah... partner?”

Xander wagged a finger. “No details. No details. But yeah. He’s cool with the not-vanilla-ness. And so far he’s... we’re dating.”

“I hope it works out for you,” said Giles, ruthlessly suppressing a pang of jealousy.

“Yeah. And actually, now that I run this conversation in slow motion replay, I am about to die of embarrassment. I think we’re being haunted by Anya.”

“I can think of worse ghosts,” said Giles, ruefully.

“Tip the non-existent glass again; absent friends.”

“Absent friends.”      

 


	3. In Which Giles Persuades Matthew to Look Differently at Xander

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Elizabeth Marshall and Katekat1010 for advice on the different UK and US names for the game Giles suggests.

It was automatic for him – although not, apparently, for anybody else despite his frequent diatribes on the subject of the electricity bill – to switch off lights as he passed doorways. His own little flat was in darkness as he left it; he turned off the light on the landing and popped his head into the kitchen. There wouldn’t be anybody here at this time – except that there was.

“Oh, Xander, I, I didn’t expect you to be here.”

“No. Well. Didn’t expect to be here myself.”

“Weren’t you, weren’t you going out?”

“Yeah.”

“Change of plans?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

He came into the kitchen, and sat down opposite Xander. “Is, is something the matter?”

Xander smiled, without amusement. “On an apocalyptic scale? No. Just the traditional. Saturday night, all ready to go out, and I’ve been dumped.”

“Oh. I – oh.”

“Yeah. Oh.”

“I’m sorry, Xander, I never quite know what, what to say. Was this, was it... if you were ready to go out, presumably it wasn’t something you’ve been expecting.”

“Shoulda been. If it had been one of the girls telling me the tale, I’da seen it coming. Stood me up twice last weekend, last minute calls both times, something come up, couldn’t make it, call me later, yada yada. I called him through the week and he wasn’t available, not answering his phone, not at his desk, take a message, get him to call you back, second verse, same as the first, you know. Then I got him at home and he was in a rush, just going out through the door, very busy, big contract, working all hours, no time to stop and chat, see me Saturday night, yeah? And I told myself, I _told_ myself that it wasn’t anything. Because it might have been true. And then tonight, we had a date, I was all ready to go out, phone rings, he can’t make it. Gotta go to dinner with the boss and the foreign visitors.”

“Well, but, but, that’s not... If he’s got work commitments and something, something...”

“Yeah. Busy busy. And I made with the reasonable, such a pity, never mind, what about tomorrow, and I got the old well, he didn’t quite know when he’d be able story. He’d call me some time next week. I said I’d call him and he said no, he would be busy, he’d be in touch. I’m dumped, Giles.”

“Then he’s an ill-mannered git who doesn’t deserve you. Shall I go and stake him?”

Xander laughed painfully. “Might help.”

“Or, or, I’ll tell you what, we’ll tell the girls that he’s a lawful target. He’ll be history by dawn.”

Xander flopped his head onto his arms. “I just feel such a fool. I thought... I thought Matthew was something special.”

“Of course you did,” said Giles gently. “Because that’s the sort of man you are. Whoever you’re with will always be special. If he’s not the one, it’s his loss, not yours.”

“Yeah. But that’s something I can say, but I don’t really...” He twisted and looked at Giles. “But hey, you were going out. You got a date, G-man?”

“ _Don’t_ call me that. No, not a date. Actually, I was, was going to a bar in Gresham Street. They have a live night every Saturday, a comedian or a band or something, and there’s a house singer, she’s rather good. They don’t charge admission, and I go quite often – I can make two pints and a chaser last all evening and it’s a couple of hours of not being a Watcher, of nobody wanting anything.” He hesitated. “Why don’t you come with me?”

Xander rolled his head back and spoke into his folded arms. “I’m not good company.”

“We’ve known each other too long for that to matter, don’t you think? Come on and we’ll be curmudgeonly together.”

“I’m not really in the mood.”

“All the more reason to come. What are you going to do otherwise? The older girls are out, the little ones are watching cartoons.”

“Hey, cartoons and popcorn, standard cure for a broken heart.”

“Is it? Damn, that explains a lot. I always used to buy Buffy ice cream. Why did nobody ever tell me?”

“Nah, I think it’s different for women. They hang about in their pjs eating ice cream straight from the tub and calling all their girlfriends. Men watch cartoons and eat popcorn. Maybe British men don’t, though?”

Giles wrinkled his nose. “I preferred alcohol, and fish and chips eaten straight from the paper, ideally outdoors, on a bench by the river. Rivers are, are sympathetic to broken hearts, and then with a bit of luck there would be a fight outside some pub at chucking-out time. I wasn’t nice with a broken heart, I tended to get aggressive rather than morose.”

“Don’t think anybody’s nice with a broken heart. Not nice to the people around them.”

“No, I think you’re right there.” Names hung between them, unspoken, until Xander shifted.

“Maybe I should skip the broken heart?” he asked in a determined tone. “Whatcha think Giles, is it worth having a broken heart over...” his voice died away.

“Over a wanker who didn’t even have the good manners to break it off face to face? I’d have said not, personally, but I don’t know the man, and it’s easy enough to say when it’s not my heart.”

“Huh. This bar of yours, is there likely to be a fight at chucking-out time?”

“Shouldn’t think so, it’s quite respectable, but we could take a couple of stakes and hope for the best. Or I’ll tell you what: we could walk up to Pavour Street afterwards.”

“Giles, I don’t think I’m...” Pavour Street was well known for being the site of a string of gay clubs, of varying degrees of respectability.

“Oh, I wasn’t suggesting we should cruise. But we could get a couple of bottles of beer and find somewhere to sit, and then play ‘Hot or Not’ as the clubs fill.”

“Giles!”

“What?”

“Where did you hear about ‘Hot or Not’?”

He cast his eyes up. “Xander, even in my day we played that. It had a different name, we called it ‘Snog, Marry, Avoid’ – well, we did when it was about girls – but we played. And I live with fifty young women; how could I not know about it? I also know that Buffy called it ‘Marry, Kiss, Kill’ – or when she thought I was out of earshot, ‘Fuck, Kiss, Kill’ – but since in her case they weren’t necessarily exclusive, we needn’t make it that complicated.”

“What’s the difference between snogging and regular kissing?”

“Snogging is wetter and involves wandering hands. More active generally. You might kiss in front of your mother but you wouldn’t snog.”

“O.K., let me get my coat. This I hafta see: what sort of guy does the Senior Watcher snog?”

“These days? Any who’ll say yes. Can’t afford to be fussy when you get to my age.”

They didn’t make it as far as closing time; they ended up in the street a good hour prior to that.

“I’m embarrassed. I would never have suggested the bar if I’d known the comic was going to be quite as awful as that.”

“Hey, you weren’t to know. The singer was good though, you were right about her. But he – he must qualify as a Big Bad, surely?”

“Unfunny _and_ offensive. Talentless berk. Not even a Big Bad, Xander, no more than a Tiresome.”

“Oh hey, I forgot, I meant to tell you earlier. There _is_ a new Big Bad.”

Giles turned his head sharply. “What?”

But Xander was grinning. “Mel. I caught her early on, the day after, you know? And I told her she wasn’t to talk about what she’d done to get ticked off by the boss-man. I thought that some of the girls might give her a hard time if they thought that they’d bombed an exercise because of her.”

“Stuff and nonsense. There’s never a single cause... what if one of the team had been injured early...”

“Hey, preaching to the choir here, Giles. But they haven’t really bonded yet, and I thought better not. And I thought too that if they found out that she had really thought I’d be in trouble, they’d tease her, so I told her she wasn’t to talk about what she’d done.”

“Probably a good idea, yes. So how does this turn her into a Big Bad?”

“She’s the _only_ one who’s ever been in trouble directly with you – and she’s living off her reputation. Giles, you wouldn’t _believe_ the kudos she’s got for it. She did something _so_ dreadful that she’s not even allowed to _talk_ about it, but the Senior Watcher _himself_ yelled at her? She is well up among the Big Bads, and she’s loving it. Oh, and _your_ reputation?”

“Oh, good Lord.”

“No, only of the good. Because you yelled at her for whatever she’d done and you made her cry – she tells them all that. She says you’re really good at yelling.”

“Thank you. I think.”

“Hey, what can I say? You are. But she also says that you said she would be a good Slayer.”

“Oh, good _Lord_.”

“The others are _so_ jealous. And Mel is working her butt off because she wants to be better than any of them – and actually, she’s gonna be, Giles, she’s gonna be something special. But I think she’s got big ambitions.”

Giles looked suspicious. “What sort of ambitions?”

“I think she doesn’t want me as her Watcher. She wants you. And I think I’m jealous.”

Giles aimed a lazy cuff at Xander's head. “Idiot.”

“Years of practice. But really, Big Guy, stealing _my_ Slayer? What are you going to do to make up for it?”

“Pizza,” said Giles blandly.

“Say what?”

“Pizza. I know you can always be bought off with pizza. Tonight? Look, that place over there is open; I’ve eaten in it a couple of times. My treat; it’ll make up for that ghastly comedian.”

It was good pizza, they both said so, and the choice of beers was wider than normal for such a small establishment. They talked, of everything, of nothing, of everyday happenings, of the things the girls had said and done which had amused or amazed them. Xander was making Giles laugh with the tale of a disastrous training exercise when his eyes went wide and his expression shifted to anger.

“What?” Giles was quiet, but a hand slipped to his pocket.

“Nothing stakeable, unfortunately, just a nasty coincidence. Matthew. Just come in. His fancy dinner with the managing director and the senior management of the Japanese consortium appears to have mutated into pizza with the new boyfriend.”

Giles winced and risked a glance sideways. “The man in the yellow shirt?”

“That’ll be the new boyfriend. Geoff, I think his name is, I’ve met him before. No _way_ is he a business contact, he’s a motorcycle courier. Matthew’s the one in the black sweater.”

“I – oh.” He wasn’t what Giles would have expected; a big man, solid, good looking – and from the look of him, at least fifteen years older than Xander.

“Hell. Can we go, Giles? Please? Before he sees me? I’m, I’m sorry, but... I know I said I knew I was dumped but... it’s different when you see it.” Xander was trembling – and Giles was suddenly furious.

“We’ll do whatever you like, Xan. Whatever you like. We’ll go if you want, but... we could, we could smack him one if you wanted.”

“Yeah, and get arrested for assault. I’d love to, the lying bastard, but... _so_ not worth it.”

“No, I, I didn’t mean literally. I meant, don’t get mad, get even. Only if you want.”

“How?”

Giles leaned forward, effectively blocking any view of Xander. “He, he’s a bit older than you. Is that, is that usual for you?”

Xander blushed. “Yeah. Yeah. I, I go for older guys. Usually.”

“Am, am I, would I be _too_ old?” That was diffident.

“What?”

“I think we should have dessert, Xan. One of those big chocolate sundae things for two. I’ll feed you the chocolate fingers and we’ll let him see.”

Xander cocked his head enquiringly.

“Because he chucked you at what, seven o’clock? And it’s barely eleven now, and already you’ve pulled, you’ve fitted in dinner, and you’re getting suggestive with your date. You’re not missing him _at all_. You’ve got somebody else lined up.”

Xander hesitated. “I like it, I like it _a lot_ , but... can we make it look... not sleazy? Not desperate? Not like I’m just turning a trick, or, or that it’s a rebound thing?”

Giles captured his hands and gave him a melting look. “It’s showing every sign of being a big romance, you mean? I think we can manage that. It’s not a rebound thing, it’s a _coup de foudre_. We were made for each other from the foundations of the world. It won’t work if you laugh.”

Xander drew their joined hands to his mouth. “It will, it will if I’m laughing because you make me so happy.” He batted his eyelashes at Giles. “Only four hours and already I know that nobody understands me the way you do. And actually, that’s probably no more than the honest truth.”

Giles caught the attention of the waitress. “One of those enormous chocolate whatevers, please, to share. Xan, wait until she’s bringing it and then go to the cloakroom, and make sure he sees you coming back. Up to you whether you don’t notice him, or notice him and give him a vague hello. That might be more effective.”

It _was_ effective. Giles saw a glorious combination of emotions cross the other man’s face: shock, embarrassment, a sort of warped pleasure, surprise, offence, confusion, all blended. Xander slid back into his place opposite Giles, one hand questing immediately across the table to meet Giles’ fingers.

“Do I call you ‘darling’?” he murmured mischievously.

“Xander, whipped cream and chocolate sauce,” countered Giles. “Life can hold no more.”

Xander gave an undignified snort of laughter, and dipped his finger in the cream, licking it off suggestively; Giles put on a shocked-maiden-aunt expression. Xander swiped the finger again, provocatively, and Giles caught his wrist, dipping his own head and closing his lips over Xander's fingertip. When he looked up, Xander's eyes were wide; Giles gave him a predatory grin.

“Do you think we can get to the bottom of the dish before they throw us out?”

“I’m not leaving until we’ve finished the mint matchsticks.”

From the corner of his eye, Giles could see Matthew watching. “What will you do for me if I let you eat my share as well as your own?” he enquired, softly, but clearly. Xander giggled, there was no other word for it, scooped up a spoonful of ice cream and offered it to Giles, who licked it slowly; Xander's eyes were fixed on his mouth.

It was amazing, Giles thought later, that they _hadn’t_ been thrown out, on grounds of public decency if nothing else. By the time they got to the bottom of the sundae, they were both laughing helplessly and Giles had to lean across the table to wipe cream off Xander's nose.

“Time to go,” he said in an undertone; the waitress had placed the bill ostentatiously on their table as she passed, an obvious hint that no, they didn’t want another beer, they wanted to get the hell out of her restaurant. He left a wad of notes, including a more than substantial tip (they might want to eat there again) and rose, wrapping an arm possessively around Xander's waist. “Don’t look at him, look at me.”

Xander immediately did, a glance of such total adoration that Giles nearly laughed again. They stopped just outside the door.

“That was _brilliant_ ,” sighed Xander happily. Giles risked a glance through the plate glass.

“He’s still staring, you know. And Geoff looks thoroughly pissed off.”

“Let him stare. In fact... let’s give him something to stare _at_.”

And oh dear Lord, Xander's arm was round his neck, Xander's mouth on his, Xander's body pressed against him. Xander, it seemed, was a rapacious kisser, searching every corner of Giles’ mouth and merciful heaven, if he didn’t put a stop to that he would be getting all sorts of unsuitable ideas. God, the man could snog, even if he didn’t call it that. He worked a hand into Xander's hair, and steadied him, gentling the kiss without pulling away, teasing and easing until Xander sighed, and leaned his head on Giles’ shoulder. _All_ sorts of unsuitable ideas. He quested for something to break the mood.

“Geoff? Snog, but only until something better shows up. Matthew? Avoid.”

Xander huffed with laughter. “What about the waitress?”

“Our one, snog. The little blonde on the other side, marry.” He hung an arm over Xander's shoulder and they turned away.

“’Kay, I wanna know, Giles, I told you. What sort of man does the Senior Watcher look at? Brad Pitt? Hot or not?”

“Not. He doesn’t do it for me, never has.”

“George Clooney?”

“Hot. Snog. Probably.”

“Keanu Reeves?”

“Definitely snog, possibly marry.”

“Don’t know many British actors... Oh, Patrick Stewart.”

“Snog.”

“Liam Neeson.”

“Marry.”

“Really? Christopher Lee.”

“Worship.” 

“Sean Connery.”

“Avoid. Roger Moore, run like hell.”

“You’ve been holding out on me, Big Guy, you told me you didn’t go to the movies.”

“Fifty teenage girls and Buffy. Seen the magazines, couldn’t avoid them.”

“David Bowie.”

He shuddered. “Avoid.”

“Yeah? He’s on my marry list.”

“Don’t like eyeliner on the sheets.”

“Never thought of that, although to be fair he doesn’t do that any more. That guy over there.”

“Avoid. The one he’s with, snog.”

“Yeah, I’d go with that....”  


	4. In Which Everybody Suddenly Looks Differently at Giles

It had been a good day. That was really all he could think of to explain why he had done it: it had been a good day. Well, a good day for him if not necessarily for anybody else.

He’d had an appointment at the bank to discuss the overdraft, which still gave him sleepless nights; the manager had been unexpectedly sympathetic, had accepted the budgets and forecasts which he had put together with such difficulty, and had come up with several helpful suggestions regarding sources of educational funding before arranging to convert half the overdraft to a loan at a surprisingly favourable rate of interest, and extending the period of the remainder.

On his way home he had passed a small antique shop and a casual glance inside had shown him an unusual dagger in a display. He had gone in to look, identified it as a reproduction and turned away, and then spotted a small bookcase in a corner. It was nothing more than habit which took him over to investigate, but he had come out with a _Monas Hieroglyphica_ (incomplete and not in good condition, but his previous knowledge of it had come from the now inaccessible Watchers’ Library), and a reprint of _Ophiolatreia_ (his own copy of which was now somewhere in the ruins of Sunnydale), and the knowledge that he had paid well under the market value of both.

After lunch he had managed to put in two hours of solid and productive work without any interruptions, a most unusual state of affairs; he decided to allow himself a short break and bethought himself of something about which he wanted to speak to Faith. He would walk across and talk to her, rather than ringing her up.

She was pleased to see him, which gave him in turn a jolt of satisfaction. Their mature relationship was an unexpected pleasure to him; she still teased him with slang and nicknames but there was more affection and less edge in it than there had been in earlier times. They understood each other now; they valued each other, he thought. She was a surprisingly good teacher, much more patient than he would ever have imagined, and he stopped and watched her leading a group of girls through exercises he remembered trying to persuade Buffy to do. From Faith’s look of amusement, she remembered too; he offered a hand to one girl who was struggling with her balance, and ended up walking her through the whole routine, as her wits apparently scattered at the idea of the Senior Watcher with his jacket and tie off, and his sleeves rolled up, acting as her counterweight. Faith backed away, grinning, and he took the challenge, led the girls through another ten minutes of stretch and flex, eventually laughing and giving her back her class.

It seemed only reasonable that he should call on the other classes; he spoke to one group working with throwing weapons, about finding a balance between speed and accuracy; he stopped in the armoury and judged the final race between two teams identifying, locating and laying out a particular set of weapons suitable for a particular fight.

He slipped into a training room and found himself in what might have seemed, to a less experienced eye, to be an inglorious brawl. Carefully picking his way around the outside to the safety of a pile of mats, he watched critically while the numbers were reduced using some scoring method he didn’t fully understand, and one combatant after another dropped out. He recognised Mélisande, her hair tied up in a lopsided ponytail; she lasted longer than her age and size would have suggested and he was impressed by her footwork and precision. Xander was right to say that she had the potential to be something special. She was on the other side of the room when she was eliminated and he saw her scowl crossly; then she spotted him and her expression flashed between delight and what he thought was embarrassment. He met her glance and gave her a tiny nod of approval before turning his attention back to the last three fighters: Xander, a tall blonde girl who was attacking his blind side ferociously, and a plain-faced girl with a peculiar pattern shaved in her short brown hair, whose technique seemed to depend on never quite being where the other two expected her to be.

“That’s Reyyan.”

Mélisande had appeared beside him; when he turned, she shrank a little back as if suddenly uneasy at having spoken to him, uncertain of her welcome. He dropped down to sit on the mat and reached over to tug on her ponytail and bring her down beside him. “And the tall one?”

“She’s Annis. Oh! She’s out.”

“You did well.”

She wrinkled her nose. “I can do better. I’ll do better when I’m bigger. Only...” she looked sideways at him.”

“What?” He was still watching Reyyan; she was actually having more trouble now that she was one-on-one with Xander and couldn’t count on his distraction by another fighter.

“Maybe I won’t grow very big,” she said in a rush. “None of my sisters are big.”

“No? Buffy isn’t big either.” He let her chew on that. Xander flipped Reyyan and dropped her to the floor; she smacked the mat in surrender.

“But... how do you manage to win _every time_ if you aren’t big? Annis can beat Reyyan more than half the time, and both of them can beat Torel, and Torel can beat me,” (that was a little shamefaced) “but don’t you need to be big to be sure of winning _always_?”

“Reyyan beat Annis and Annis is taller, because Reyyan was being smarter; Reyyan was letting Annis do all the work fighting Xander.”

“Xander beat Reyyan.”

He thought for a moment and then smiled. “Xander?”

Xander turned enquiringly.

“Mélisande has raised a good point about fighting strength and relative size. Could you beat Spike?”

Xander made a face. “Not as often as I would have liked.”

“And was Spike big?”

“Not particularly. Strong, mind. Compact. Smaller than me, I think, and certainly smaller than you.”

Giles cocked his head at Mélisande, who frowned. “But Spike was a _vampire_. So...”

“He could win against bigger vampires too.”

One of the other girls joined in. “Older vampires are stronger. So Spike would win against a fledgling. How did he beat older vampires?”

“Spike won because he was clever,” said Giles firmly. “He was an irritating plonker of the first order, wasn’t he, Xander? But he was a clever fighter. Reyyan beat most of you today because she was being clever. That was good work, Reyyan.” She dipped her head, embarrassed, but smiling. “And Xander beat Reyyan because he has learned how to be a clever fighter too, and he’s been doing it longer. Reyyan is quicker than Xander, and younger and stronger and she’s got all the Slayer attributes going for her, and both eyes, but Xander won because he’s got experience as well as skill, and because – forgive me, Reyyan – she was a little predictable once he stopped having to watch for Annis as well. So tell me, if we put Reyyan against Xander again, how could Reyyan win?”

They all talked at once; Xander dropped onto the mat beside Giles, breathing hard, and the girls chattered like starlings, until Giles hushed them.

“One at a time. One at a time. You: how could Reyyan win?”

“With a weapon. Xander has a longer reach, but if she’s armed and he isn’t...”

“Good. Well armed is half the battle. Not what we’re doing here, but quite right nonetheless. How else? You?”

“Work more on his blind side.”

“Indeed. Annis made that work for her. Reyyan did it, but not enough. Probably at the start of the fight, she’d have been fresh enough to do it, to get round him, to keep him turning; she was doing it while there were still other people involved, but she had to fight them too. By the end, I think she was too tired to keep it up. That’s fitness; it’ll come to you all as you work. How else? You with the plait, I’m sorry, I don’t know your name?”

He kept them at it for several minutes, eventually turning to Xander. “Are you ready for another bout with Reyyan?”

“What? No! Why can’t you do it?”

“Because I’m the Senior Watcher. I direct operations nowadays, I don’t have to be knocked down by overactive girls. I did that for years, Buffy and Faith thumped me on a regular basis. Now it’s your turn. Annis, fasten his body protector for him again. Reyyan, this time you’re going to win, and I’m going to tell you how. Come over here.”  

He led her to one side, and they talked in an undertone; at one point she turned a surprised face towards the others and he put a hand on her arm to keep her attention. Then she nodded vigorously, and marched back to the middle of the floor.

“I’m ready, Xander.”

“I’m not,” whined Xander theatrically. “He’s wearing that look again; it means he’s got something horrible planned and I’m going to end up on the floor. I’ve known him for years and when he gets that look about him, it never ends well for me.”

“Do you mean me?” asked Giles in equally theatrical innocence. “I’m just helping with training. Come on, Xander, would I hurt you?”

“Yes!”

“I’m wounded that you could think such a thing. Don’t you _trust_ me?”

“Since you ask, no!”

“Not entirely stupid then,” said Giles briskly. The girls laughed. “Come on: winner gets my spare packet of Jaffa cakes.”

“That’s all right for her; what about me?”

“You might win.”

“Vampires _might_ be vegetarians. What about me?”

“Next time the ice-cream van calls I’ll buy you a ninety-nine.”

“Yeah, yeah, always jam tomorrow. How come you’re allowed to pick on me?”

“Because I’m the Senior Watcher,” said Giles patiently. “I’m allowed to tease you. The girls aren’t. They have to be respectful towards you. If they pick on you, I’ll yell at them. Mélisande will tell them that they won’t like that, right, Mélisande? Now get out there and fight.”

He did, a quick attack on Reyyan which she only just countered, fending him off and backing away to get her balance before she closed in again. Xander was suddenly serious, refusing to let her approach his blind side, making her work, and taking full advantage of her weariness. Giles, meanwhile, was whispering in Mélisande’s ear; he held her shoulder, waiting for some indication, and then dropped his hand and loosed her like a hawk. She flung herself forward as Reyyan drove Xander back, rolling low to the backs of his legs, and with a squawk he fell over her, bouncing off the mat and coming up to Reyyan’s hand at his throat.

“If at first you don’t succeed,” said Giles calmly, “cheat. Well done, Reyyan. Thank you, Mélisande. You see? Reyyan can’t – yet – defeat Xander because he has too much experience. But Reyyan and Mélisande together, acting as a team? That’s something quite different. You need to know not only your own strengths and weaknesses, but each other’s. Mélisande is probably the only one of you small enough to get away with that in precisely that form, but most of you could act as a distraction. You do need to be able to fight as individuals but it won’t necessarily be the best way of winning.”

“But...” said Annis.

“Yes?”

“The Slayer? One girl in all the world? The Chosen One? Fighting alone?”

“Ah. Yes. We tried that. We found gang warfare was more effective. Backup. A Slayer, or ideally more than one, plus a Watcher plus a witch. We added in all sorts of others. A cheerleader. A werewolf. A vampire on our side.”

“A construction worker who wants to go back to construction,” said Xander sadly.

“Nonsense. You’re not going back to construction, you’re far too important. I can’t manage without you here.”

“Only because you’re not prepared to be knocked down by Slayers any more.”

“Indeed. Reyyan, I’ll send over the Jaffa cakes; I’ll expect you to share with Melisande. Xander gets the ice cream. He didn’t complain very much, and it wasn’t very fair of me to take over his training session and then make him the fall guy, was it? Do you think he deserves Jaffa cakes too?”

They did, apparently; Xander himself caught Giles’ eye and mouthed “Scotch! Later!” and Giles smiled at him and nodded. In fact, he thought, he ought not to leave Xander's group in any doubt over Xander's authority.

“You mustn’t think, either, that Xander would fall for such a simple trick in a real fight. In the training rooms, at this stage of your training, you have certain expectations: that nobody is armed in a way you don’t know about _unless_ that’s the exercise you’re doing. That nobody is _really_ trying to kill you. That if you’re fighting one on one, nobody else will join in. Out there, _there are no rules_. In a real fight, Xander would never have disregarded an enemy who hadn’t been accounted for; in a real fight, he might have fallen over Mélisande, but he’d have killed her before he got up again. In a real fight, there’s no such thing as fighting fair. There’s winning and losing. The quick – literally – and the dead.” He looked round at them all. “You’ve made a good start; Xander can be very proud of you.” He winked at Mélisande. “I don’t think I need to yell at anybody.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” said Xander, still on the floor. “Can we stop now? I have bruises on my bruises.”

Giles slipped away while Xander's girls were picking him up and stripping him out of his protective gear; he wondered once again if he could somehow make time to join the newest girls more often, and once again thought sadly that until he could afford to take on an administrative team, it couldn’t be done.

He went back to his office, but he was still a little buzzed on the day as a whole, and when he went for dinner, he was just a little sharper than usual, and more inclined to participate in the conversation. Xander came in late to the staff table, rushing up the stairs, out of breath, and with his shirt damp and clinging.

“Listen guys, after dinner, I’m redoing next week’s housekeeping rotas. Four of my girls are grounded, they’re on garbage and scrubbing, and if any of you have particularly horrible cleaning jobs to do, they’ll be available. And they’ll be spending some quality time next week learning construction skills.”

Everybody round the table looked up. Giles cast a hasty glance down the room at the girls; it was easy enough to pick out that there was some attitude being thrown at the other end of the long tables.

“Whassup, Xan?” asked Faith, snagging the bread and passing it to him companionably.

“My girls were in the training room this afternoon; Giles came in and we were maybe a bit later than usual finishing. So I chased them off to the changing rooms, went downstairs to my room, thinking to grab a shower myself, and found the ceiling down in my bathroom, plaster everywhere, and water dripping through the light socket.”

They all made sounds of surprise, and Giles in particular, as the keeper of the credit card, looked anxious. Xander flashed him a smile. “S’okay, boss, I’ve checked it. No permanent damage. I’ll have to replace the light fitting, but the electrics are sound. But it had flipped the fuse on our floor, guys, so you’ll all need to reset anything with a clock on it.”

“What was it?” asked Jelena. “If you have grounded your girls, then presumably they did it?”

“Water fight this morning, and they flooded two of the bathrooms, and then they just left it, no attempt to clear up, and the water left running over one bath, with the plug in. The overflow couldn’t cope, the floor swamped and it ran down the joists and ended up coming through in mine. I did some high quality yelling until we established which of them had been involved; my girls will have to use one of the other shower blocks until I can get things mended, and I’ve made it plain that they go _after_ your girls have finished and if there’s not enough hot water, that’s tough. So the ones who weren’t involved will have things to say to the ones who were. When it’s all dry again, they’re going to learn plastering, which is hard, and plastering above their heads, which is _very_ hard, and Faith, if I could please grab a shower in your bathroom after dinner, that would definitely be of the good.”

“Sure thing, Xan,” she shrugged; Giles never quite knew what prompted him to say what he did next – except that it had been a good day and he had enjoyed himself, and he was relaxing with the people around him and inclined to tease them as they so often teased him.

“That’s all very well, Xander, but you know the rules. You’re responsible for what your girls do.” All along the table, heads turned towards him; Xander looked vaguely startled. Giles smiled blandly at him. “Six of the best over my knee, I think; see me after supper,” and he turned his attention back to his salad.

There was a moment’s silence and then Faith gave a crow of laughter. “He got you that time, Xan.” She winked at Giles. “Bluff, G-man. If you never did it in Sunnydale – and God knows, we gave you _every_ provocation...”

Xander reached for the chicken but Giles had seen the spark of mischief. “Speak for yourself, Faith. I agree about the provocation, but you’re wrong about the ‘never’.”

Faith’s face was a mixture of laughter and suspicion. “What, you’re telling me... don’t believe you.”

“Not a word of a lie. Back in the library days, I’ve been turned over the G-man’s knee.”

She turned a startled gaze on Giles for confirmation and plainly got it from his deliberately blank lack of response.

“O.K., I’m officially jealous.”

“You needn’t be, Faith.” That was Giles himself. “I, I don’t think Xander enjoyed the experience.” He was rather surprised at Xander; Giles had only made the threat as a joke, he wouldn’t have mentioned the prior occasion. Still, he thought, it had always been something which he had found more upsetting than Xander did.

“But...” Jelena was also struggling with the concept. “Why did you do it? What had Xander done?”

“Flat rank disobedience, as I recall,” said Giles, mildly, but Xander, suddenly serious, shook his head.

“No such thing and you know it. You paddled me for disobedience, sure, but the spanking was for putting myself in danger and scaring you into fits.”

Faith was turning her head from one of them to the other, like someone watching a tennis match, plainly still not certain that she believed any of it. Oksana laughed. “But this is the old fashioned English discipline, yes? It is simply the way Mr Giles was brought up?”

“Not in the least,” said Giles, mildly insulted. “How old do you think I am? And now I come to think of it, don’t answer that. You people do seem to have a very old-fashioned idea of British culture. My parents disapproved of corporal punishment and never used it; my school had given it up a good ten years before I ever got there. Nothing whatsoever to do with the way I was brought up.”

“What?” squawked Xander in exaggerated offence. “I thought you knew what you were doing? Hell, it felt like you knew what you were doing. Are you telling me you didn’t know what you were doing?”

Giles smiled gently at him. “Of course I’m not.” Beside him, Oksana, quicker on the uptake than the others, was beginning to giggle; Xander blinked in confusion.

“But you said...”

“I said that I was never punished physically when I was a child. Consider what you know about my early adulthood, Xander, and my disreputable friends, and then think: is this a line of enquiry which you really want to pursue or would you prefer, ah, to put your fingers in your ears and go la-la-la?”

He saw the picture form for both Xander and Faith; Jelena and Oksana were laughing and Faith shook her head and joined in, with Xander pretending to be horrified, and the whole conversation descended into amusement.

When next he looked up, though, Xander was watching him.


	5. In Which Giles and Xander Look Differently at Each Other

He was expecting Xander – they didn’t have an arrangement precisely, but it was more common than not that on Friday nights, Xander would wander up to his tiny flat and they would share a drink. Saturday night was different; Saturday night Xander was usually going somewhere and Giles would go out too, mainly because otherwise he would find himself working through the whole weekend. The difference, of course, although he tried not to think about it, was that Xander usually had a date and Giles...

Didn’t.

Some Fridays Xander did and... those tended to be the Fridays that Giles would still be working at midnight. There was always more work to be done. Always more research, always more planning.

But he was expecting Xander; he had the Scotch on the coffee table and a couple of glasses ready. He wasn’t expecting the knock at the door. Xander didn’t knock and wait that way. Xander knew he was expected, so he would tap and open the door and call Giles’ name if Giles wasn’t there, so that Giles, in his bedroom or bathroom or wherever, would know he had arrived. Nobody knocked and waited; work callers went to the office and out of hours there was an internal phone system.

“Come in?”

But it _was_ Xander; Xander with slightly damp hair and clean clothes, obviously fresh from Faith’s shower, Xander with an odd expression, cutting in as Giles opened his mouth.

“Xander Harris, Mr Giles. I was... I was told to report to you after supper.”

Giles shut his mouth again, not quite sure what response was expected of him; he simply stared at Xander for a moment and then said carefully, “Yes?”

“It was my girls who brought down the bathroom ceiling.”

“I believe I heard something about it,” said Giles, still carefully. “So...”

And Xander produced something from behind his back. It took Giles a moment – it was as if his focus on it was wrong, so he identified what it was, but not what Xander was telling him, and then with an almost audible click, the picture resolved itself.

Xander was holding out the leather guard from a hand axe.

Giles’ hesitation was just a fraction too long; he saw it from Xander's expression. But Xander surely _couldn’t_ be saying what – what Giles thought he was saying?

No. Giles must be misunderstanding. Xander was merely turning the joke back on Giles. “Think yourself lucky. You didn’t like it last time I did that.”

“That was a long time ago. I like it well enough now.” And that was plain enough that even Giles couldn’t misunderstand it. Couldn’t misunderstand but... couldn’t believe it either. Couldn’t think of any answer to break the horrible thick silence.

Xander sighed and the hot colour washed upward from his neck. “Hell. I just... I... can I go back out and come in and pretend I never did that?”

And Giles was about to nod, mutely, and something... “No. No, I don’t think you can. I, I, I think you need to...” to explain it, to repeat it, to give him a moment to think of an answer, to let him get the question into focus.

They looked at each other blankly; Giles felt his own face grow hot to match Xander's, and Xander made a frustrated sound and came properly inside to throw himself onto the couch and clutch at his hair.

“Fuck. I... God. I knew this was a mistake.”

 _So why did you do it?_ Giles managed not to say it.

“It was... I’ve been thinking about it all week.”

O.K., Giles was lost again. “About the girls bringing the ceiling down?” That made no sense at all. They hadn’t done it a week ago.

“No!” Oh. Xander could do the two-syllable God-you’re-so-slow contempt-with-added-eyeroll denial too. “About... about ‘Hot or Not’.”

“Right.” Giles was just going to jog alongside the conversation until Xander said something he recognised and he could hop on board again. He couldn’t even make helpful ‘uh-huh?’ noises because they implied some degree of understanding which he didn’t have. Oh look, another eyeroll.

“No. Not ‘right’. You haven’t a clue what I’m talking about, have you, and that’s why this is such an _incredibly_ bad... There’s a whole world of embarrassment... I’ll... I’ll just go.”

“I, I, I don’t think I want you to go.” O.K., that had been Giles’ voice; he had definitely said it aloud. Xander's expression was startled but his surprise was as nothing when compared with Giles’. That had been Giles’ mouth working without any backup from his brain, which appeared to have gone absent without leave. “‘Hot or Not’? Why have you been thinking about that?” Because however incomprehensible _that_ was, it had to make more sense than Xander arriving with an axe guard and suggesting that Giles should... intimating that Giles might... talking about damaged ceilings.

“Because all the men you said were hot – I don’t mean the movie stars or whatever, you had the same sort of range as anybody else on them, I mean the ordinary guys in the street – all the ones you said yes to were younger than you and most of them were dark.”

O.K. Yes. He understood that. He didn’t understand what good it was to man or beast but he understood it. Xander was looking at him with the expression of somebody who was expecting him to pick up the ball and score from here.

Not a hope.

“Yes?”

There was a silence and he could see Xander deflate. “Only... I’m wrong, aren’t I? You don’t think of me that way.”

“ _What?_ ”

“Fuck. I have got this _so_ wrong. I just... see... what you said about other people not understanding, about the contact, about not being able to explain this to people outside the set-up. About wanting somebody who could be there in the morning and at night and who would understand, and I _know_ about that, I know that already, I’ve just, I’ve just been denying it and pretending that it could be somebody from outside, that I could manage something long term when I can’t even tell him – or her – what I do. And even if... even if it was somebody I could trust enough to tell... how do I tell him about all the stuff? All the stuff we’ve done? All the stuff we never talk about, Giles, because we don’t need to talk about it any more? And I just thought, if that’s what Giles wants, somebody who understands and is _there_ , and then... then I started to think that I wanted that too.

“And then I realised that sorta, I’d already got it. That when the girls do something brilliant or something awful, where do I go to tell somebody? I come here. It’s like... the relationship I wanted, I’ve already got it, only now I’ve fucked it up. Who’s here last thing at night? You are. Who’s here every morning? You are. And I was sorta thinking about filling in the bit in between because all your hot guys, all your snog guys...”

Giles was scrabbling about for something to say but his brain had apparently not just gone AWOL but actually taken its passport and fled the country, possibly with the intention of applying for political asylum somewhere else. He was having trouble remembering how to breathe. He was having trouble _remembering_ to breathe. Speak, Giles. Say _something_.    

“All my snog guys...?” Oh, way to go with the intelligent comment and why, suddenly, did both what he said and what he thought come in Xander's vocabulary rather than his own?

“...looked like me.”

“I, I, I... Yes. Well. But you, you...” _Say something, Giles! Preferably with a beginning, a middle, an end, and no stammering!_ “You, you, what you want...”

“What I _want_ ,” said Xander, a little too loudly, and with that flush lifting from his collar again, “is somebody who understands. If it’s a guy, I’d like him older than me and, and, a bit...”

“Not-vanilla. You said not-vanilla.”

“And you said you’d done... and then tonight you said... and it was like you came into focus suddenly,” oh yes, Giles knew how _that_ went, when somebody you’d known for years said or did something and stopped being the spare child around the library and became Xander, or who stopped being that needy adolescent and became his wingman. When it was like they shifted and they were the same but at the same time totally new and different. When the world shook the kaleidoscope and all the pieces were the same and not the same.

Like now. Now he was looking at Xander and seeing something quite different again, and Xander was gazing back, rabbit in the headlights, and...

About to bolt. “Oh _fuck_. Demonic possession, Giles, put it down to demonic possession, always worked as an excuse before, Xander went weird, said... said some stuff, didn’t mean any of it, see you Monday!” Bolting. Straight for the door, and halfway down the stairs, and Giles’ brain was back from its holiday, tanned and refreshed and ready to work, no warm-up required. Just please God, let there be nobody in the kitchen to hear him as he leaned over the banister and unleashed the voice he had used on Mélisande.

_“I didn’t say you could go.”_

It was as if Xander ran into a wall.

“Get back up here.”

Beneath him, Xander was motionless.

“If I have to go down there to fetch you, Harris, you’ll be _sorry_.”

He saw Xander's head come up, Xander's face turn upward, and Xander's thumb slide under the elastic of his eye-patch. He saw Xander's throat move as he swallowed.

He saw Xander turn back to the stairs and come up to him, a little slowly. He saw Xander's chest heave as if he had been running, or fighting.

The kaleidoscope shook and he saw Xander, all the things Xander was, and a sudden new Xander who simply might be. Might be Giles’ Xander. Giles’ Xander, stopped in the doorway. Oh yes, Giles remembered how to do this.

“Close the door.”

Xander pushed it shut without looking.

“Now.” That actually sounded rather threatening. He stepped carefully round behind Xander. “You wanted, if I recall correctly, somebody who would remember your name. Remember who you were.” He leaned in close. “You are Alexander LaVelle Harris, and you are _my_ wingman.” He didn’t touch, but Xander shivered. “You wanted somebody who wasn’t freaked by the eye-patch.” He reached over Xander's shoulder and laid his hand very gently on Xander's cheek, his fingertips on the elastic. “Do I need to show you?”

Xander shook his head slowly, just one movement left and right. Giles didn’t know what he did in front of his lovers but he had been aware for a long time that Xander never took off his patch in the training rooms, or the common areas of Slayer Central. A few times he had done it in Giles’ little flat, at the end of a hard week, or when the skin was irritated; Giles had always made a point of neither commenting nor looking away. Now he let his fingers slide over Xander's cheekbone until his hand was cupped over socket and patch together, and his breath stirred the soft hairs on the back of Xander's neck. “I am freaked neither by the patch, nor by what lies beneath it; you may show it to me or not as you please.

“You wanted exclusivity: I don’t share. What I take, I keep.” That came a little low and dangerous; Xander's head, still within the curve of his fingers, moved a little and he felt the come and go of Xander's breath on his wrist as he withdrew his hand. 

“And you wanted something that was occasionally... other than vanilla.” He touched a single finger to the nape of Xander's neck and drew it slowly downward, relishing Xander's shudder. “What other flavours do you like?”

He saw the quick glance Xander sent at the axe guard.

“Oh yes, that one was easy. You wouldn’t have brought it here if you hadn’t been willing. And I seem to recall that Anya mentioned...? Did you give her one of those?”

“No,” breathed Xander. “Anya had a hairbrush.”

“Of course she did. And which of you used it?”

“Both of us. But I liked it better when she did.”

“Mm. And what is it you like, Xander: just the sensation, or the whole performance?”

Xander looked sideways at him, plainly not understanding.

“Do I just apply it, or do I spin it out? Send you to fetch it? Undress you for it, slowly?” He leaned close to Xander's ear. “Pin you in place and _talk_ about it?”

The shudder was stronger and Xander had to swallow before he could speak. “If you tell me I deserve it and send me to fetch it, I’ll go.”

Giles fought the urge to shudder himself. “And what else? Restraint, perhaps?” He eased his hands down Xander's arms to his wrists and turned the pliant body towards the door, pinning Xander's hands gently against the wood. When he opened his own hands, Xander stayed where he had been put, braced against the door, head slightly lowered, and Giles allowed one hand to quest upwards over Xander's chest. With his palm flat, he could feel Xander's heart beating. “Do you like that?”

“Yesssssss.” It was a sigh. Giles tweaked a nipple, making Xander jump, and then cupped his hand on Xander's throat, not gripping but pushing upwards on his jawbone so that he had to lift his head.

“And do you play rough? Shall I _make_ you do what I want? Or is that not something you would like?”

“I... I’ve done that, but I’ve always been the one making.”

Giles chuckled. “Are you going to try that with me? Try to _make_ me do what you want?”

“I might.” That was a challenge.

“Do you think you could?”

“Could have a lot of fun trying.” Xander didn’t remove his hands from the door, but he flexed his shoulders; there was plenty of muscle there.

“I think I would like that too. You’re younger, probably stronger, certainly faster than me.”

“But you’re smarter. We know you don’t fight fair.”

“And I’m not starting now. But you might win. Would you like that?”

“Yes... but... would _you_?”

“There would be a certain amount of pleasure to be had in either winning or losing, yes. Hmmm, what else? Have you ever made love in front of a mirror, Xander? Or knelt in front of a mirror and watched somebody else touch you, watched the way you look when you come? No? Oh, you must certainly try that. And somebody like you who enjoys sweet things, have you ever knelt at a lover’s feet and been fed? Strawberries and banana pieces and melted chocolate for you to take from my hand, and afterwards I would expect you to lick my fingers clean. Ice cream – you like ice cream, and I would like it served on your body.” He would, too; he was allowing himself to touch, only through cotton, not yet on bare skin, and even so, Xander was quivering and shifting under the contact.

“Now I think you could put on a lovely show for me if you set your mind to it: I think you could strip for me, and touch yourself, and make me want you... I like to make love with the lights on, to see what reactions I’m getting, but just once in a while, I like to turn the lights off, and do everything by touch, no words, not even a whisper. That’s even better if you don’t know it’s coming, if you just wake up to somebody touching you, somebody you can’t see. You talk a lot, Xander: can you keep up your end of a conversation on the phone in front of other people, when I’m at the other end of the line telling you what I want to do to you?”

Xander whimpered. Definitely a whimper. Giles leaned closer again, and spoke to the skin of his neck, one arm around Xander's chest and the other hand exploring the curve of hip and thigh.

“Ever been plugged, Xander? Yes? Ever been plugged with ginger? It’s cool, to begin with – and then it isn’t. Then it burns – and you’ll squirm. You won’t be able to help yourself.”

Xander swallowed hard. “And does – does all this go both ways?”

“If, if that’s what you want.”

His head went back against Giles’ shoulder, hands still pressed to the woodwork. “I don’t think I know what I want, except that I want it now.”

“Is that not-vanilla enough for you?”

“God, yes. And can I just add, you talking about them, that’s not-vanilla too.”

“We’re forgetting the basics. Top or bottom? Or both?”

“Both. Either.”

“But you must have some ideas of your own, surely?” That was whispered into Xander's ear; Giles continued to drift his fingers over chest and thighs, never quite close enough, despite Xander's hopeful squirms.

“That big desk of yours – gotta be good for something.”

“Indeed. My office door doesn’t lock, though, so it would have to be _very_ quietly.”

“Mmm. And... this sounds silly, but I like it...” It was a little tentative.

“Tell me.” It was no more than a breath.

“I wanna give you a bath. Wash your back. Wash your front. Wash whatever else I can find. Take care of you, make you feel good.”

“I could learn to like that. Quite easily, I suspect.”

“And I’d like to go somewhere, to a bar maybe, where I don’t know you and you don’t know me, and see what you do when you pick up a guy.”

“Where I pick up a man and take him home? Or where I pick up a man and take him into the alley where they stack the empty beer barrels?”

“Yeah. I mean either one, and for the love of God, Giles, can we stop talking about the possibilities and try one?”

Giles chuckled low in his throat. “Got a preference?”

Xander blushed hotly and Giles added that to his list: making Xander ask for what he wanted. His embarrassment, though, didn’t seem to hold him back.

“Thought I made my preference clear when I came up here to report to the Senior Watcher.”

“So you did.” Giles stepped back. “Safe-word?”

“Um... Oh God.”

“No, that’s not going to work, although I have every intention of making you pray before I’m finished.”

“No, I mean... um... the one I’ve used for years is ‘Giles’.”

There was a moment’s silence while Giles considered this. “Really? Why?”

“Well, _duh_. Because you kept us safe. Um, give me a minute and I’ll think of something. What about ‘Rupert’ instead?”

“That’ll do. And the normal red-amber-green?”

“I use yellow, not amber, but yeah.”

“Not ‘yeah’, Harris: ‘yes’, or preferably ‘yes, _sir’._ ”

“Yes, sir.”

“The little matter of the bathroom ceiling, Harris. The bathroom ceiling which _your girls_ , the girls who are your responsibility, brought down. Wilful destruction. I believe I told you what the penalty would be?”

“Yes, sir. Six of the best, over your knee.”

Giles turned away towards the couch. “Fetch that paddle and come here, please.” Xander followed him, holding out the axe guard, eye innocently wide, face solemn. Giles looked him slowly up and down, as if considering, and sat, accepting the guard from Xander's hand and laying it beside him.

“Jeans down, and into position. This is going to sting, but it’s no more than you deserve.” This time, he could believe it with a whole heart. He saw Xander's tongue flicker over his lower lip and heard Xander's breath come short as his hands went to his waistband.

“Yes, sir.” Yes, it did seem that Xander liked the way Giles talked, if the bulge in his jeans was anything to go by. The denim folded down around his knees, leaving him hidden by his long shirt; Giles opened his mouth to order the shorts down too, and found himself forestalled by a lap full of Xander, a Xander who reached obligingly back and flipped up the tail of his shirt to reveal nothing but himself from waist to thighs.

“Gone regimental? Of course, Harris is a good Scottish name; I suppose I  should have expected nothing else.” He could _see_ Xander consider that, fail to understand it, and... decide he didn’t care, as Giles passed his palm lightly over the expanse of skin. “You’re well prepared,” he clarified, smiling to himself.

“You’ve always told me the value of proper groundwork, sir.”

“So I have. I think I’ll start with some groundwork of my own. I’m feeling merciful, so I’ll warm you up by hand before we move on to the main event.” It was intended to let him see how easily Xander marked, whether he had the sort of skin which bruised easily, and also to let him judge how far Xander wanted to go and whether he just wanted a little heat now, or something he would still feel in the morning.

The latter, it seemed: Xander was a ferocious wriggler, squirming about under the punishing palm, offering – it seemed – frantic apologies and promises to do better, all of them just _slightly_ insolent, kicking and writhing, although never enough for him to be in any danger of getting away. Giles paused, and drew his nails lightly over the reddened arse in front of him; Xander squawked and Giles cast around for a means of asking if he could go on.  

“Not knowing what your girls were up to, Harris? That’s a mistake for a very inexperienced Watcher, a green Watcher. Are you still green, Harris?” Clumsy, but it would do.

“Yes, sir, I must be very green. Sorry, sir.”

“Oh, you will be.” That sounded threatening enough, however clichéd it was. “Six, Harris. You won’t be sitting comfortably tomorrow.” He picked up the axe guard, and tapped the reddened rump over his lap. “Ready?”

“Yes, sir.”

His technique was good, he knew that. Randall had liked to be spanked, and Bridget who had only ever been on the fringes of their group had liked to spank, and he had learned from both of them. He knew the flick of the wrist which would make the leather snap against Xander’s skin, so that the first one would come as a surprise after his hand. He knew the shape of the request for more, and harder, which came in the consequent arch of the back, and he obliged. He knew where to place the leather to produce the strongest burn and smart.

He knew from the reaction that Xander could have taken twice that, easily, and would, some time in the not-too-distant future. And he knew from the pressure of Xander's erection against his own that More was for another day, and that right now, less play and more action was called for. He traced his fingers gently over the crimson flesh and felt Xander quiver; explored a little further in, and heard a long encouraging “Mmmm.” Xander took a fingertip easily, and rocked against him which was nearly his undoing. God, it had been too long.

“Get that shirt off, and your trousers too, and pray that I still have some lube and a condom in the bedside table.”

Xander worked his shoes off; his feet inside were bare and he didn’t move otherwise. “Got both in my jeans pocket.”

“Excellent. Full marks. ‘If you’re looking for adventure of a new and different kind...’” He leaned down to yank the jeans free of Xander's ankles and rifle the pockets.

“Oh, I know that one! ‘Don’t be nervous, don’t be flustered, don’t be scared...’”

“‘Be prepared!’” agreed Giles, slicking his fingers and returning to his exploration. He teased slow circles, never giving Xander more than a fingertip, until Xander began to squirm, arching his back and wriggling.

“Giles!”

“Yes?”

“Do you want me to beg? I can beg. I can _so_ beg. Begging is totally not a problem. I feel no shame.”

He slid a finger inside, and Xander's voice caught. “Is that what you’re begging for?”

“Yes,” said Xander, breathlessly. “More?”

Second finger. A little stretching, a little exploration to find the point which would make Xander gasp. Xander was moving, humping Giles’ thigh slowly, making lovely breathy sounds of pleasure.

“Just do it, Giles, _now,_ please, _please_.” He sounded as desperate as Giles felt.

“Up, then.” He needed a moment to compose himself – even allowing for his age, this was going to be over much faster than he wanted if he didn’t... Oh dear Lord. Xander had shrugged off his shirt and simply bent, hands on Giles’ coffee table, the perfect scarlet arse presented to Giles. _For_ Giles. He just looked, drowning in the glorious vision for a second, and then landed one more stinging slap. “No, not like that, not this time. This time I want you in my bed. We’ll do that another time.” Would they ever – and more than once if Giles’ cock was to be allowed an opinion on the matter. He reached for Xander as he straightened and pulled him in for a kiss, his hands skating over the expanses of bare skin, feeling the shift in temperature between hipbone and buttock, and Xander's little gasp into his mouth as he palmed the hot skin and let his fingers slide into the slick centre.

“Bed _now_.” He wasn’t even sure which of them had said it; he certainly wasn’t sure which of them had unbuttoned his shirt but _wasn’t_ it a good idea, he could just drop it here to pick up tomorrow and give the small part of his mind which was still working – and it was a _very_ small part: the majority of his cognitive functions seemed to be dealing with nothing more complicated than Fuck Xander Right Now – an order to get his fly open and his trousers off. He was leaving a trail of clothes across the room in a manner he hadn’t done in more years than he cared to remember, but by the time he tipped Xander onto the bed – or Xander tipped him, he wasn’t sure which – they were both naked, hands everywhere, mouths fused, tongues battling, spectacles missing in action.

Xander turned onto his back, tugging greedily to get Giles on top of him, and his head thrashed hard left and right as Giles bit down on a tight nipple. The complete freeze, every muscle tight, caught Giles out; he froze himself and looked cautiously up into Xander's face, half expecting, even at this late stage, to see that Xander had changed his mind.

Some instinct had his hand moving to catch Xander's before it could reach his face; the eye-patch had caught on the pillow and pulled askew. There was one heartbeat in which Giles thought of all the things he might say and then he said none of them, but simply rose on his elbows, crawling up the bed to press his lips to cheekbone and temple and once to scar tissue between. He didn’t presume either to remove the patch or to replace it: that degree of nakedness was Xander's choice, not ever his. He let go of Xander's hand, and slowly the fingers rearranged the leather – and hesitated – and slipped it off.

Giles said nothing, and returned to his exploration of Xander's chest and collar bones, his hands and mouth slow and reassuring now rather than frantic and desperate, but Xander's hands came down to tug at him, to bring him in for a kiss, and he felt the mobile mouth quiver. He broke away an inch and said softly, “I know, it’s all right,” and cursed himself for an idiot – what sort of thing was that to say? But it did seem to be right, because Xander smiled shakily, and wrapped an arm around them and rolled them both to get himself on top. He seemed to want to do the same, slow delicate touches to – Giles suddenly realised, to the marks which speckled his body. To the silver-white circles on his chest and stomach; to the long slash on his breastbone; to the fingers of his right hand, which Xander took slowly into his mouth. To all the places where Angelus had struck at Buffy through Giles, and then to all the places where Giles had been too slow in his own defence. To the places which proved that Giles _did_ know, and that it _was_ all right. Xander's tongue traced a thin line and Giles laughed.

“That tickles!” He looked down into the anxious eye, and added helpfully, “Appendix. I was fifteen.”

Xander snorted, placed another kiss on the line and shifted, to a long, straight mark on Giles’ ribs. Giles saw him identify it.

“I don’t remember where I got that one.”

“You’re a rubbish liar, Giles.” It was spoken into his skin. “You remember perfectly well, it hurt like hell and you had quite a lot to say about it.”

“‘But that was in another country, and besides, the wench is dead.’”

“What?”

“It was a long time ago,” he translated, pulling Xander back up beside him. “Nothing still hurts, and surely we had something better to do than compare scars?” He eased his hand back between Xander's thighs as he spoke and Xander smiled and let him, head tipped back in pleasure, eye shut. He put a hand out and...

“What?” Xander lifted his head as Giles growled in frustration and leaned over him to the bedside table.

“No idea what I did with the sodding condom you brought, _or_ the slick. Not a clue. You’ve addled my brains, Harris, I’ve turned into an idiot.”

“Yay, welcome to my world... Actually, that _is_ rather satisfying. You’re always so organised, it’s good to see you lose it.”

“Cheeky bugger... O.K., I’ve got one. Are, are you... or would you rather...”

“I would _rather_ that you get that damn thing on your dick, and your dick up my ass, some time this year if at all possible.”

“Pushy bottom,” said Giles absently, allowing Xander to take the condom from his hand and rip the foil, and hissing as Xander reached for him and rolled it on.

“Believe it,” agreed Xander shortly, pulling his knees up. “ _Now_ , Giles.”

He had more sense than to take that on trust; not with a new lover. He went slowly and carefully, although Xander was encouraging him to hurry, and his own inclination was to grab Xander's legs and simply drive himself home. “Oh good Lord...”

Xander had his lip between his teeth. “Good?”

“Oh bloody hell, yes. Oh yes. God, Xander, I’m not, I’m not going to last. It’s been too long, sorry.”

He got a long slow smile for that, and Xander eeling himself up to kiss him again. “Harder, Giles. Hard and fast. Slow and gentle another time, want it _hard_ now...”

“Yes, and that sort of talk is guaranteed to make me last longer,” he scolded through gritted teeth; Xander had the nerve to laugh and that left Giles with eyes shut and forehead against Xander's shoulder as everything tightened around him and he saw sparks. “Remind me to spank you again later.”

“Oh God, yes, sir, Mr Giles, please.”

“Insolent puppy.” His hips snapped.

“That’s me.”

“Impudent wretch.”

“Guilty.”

“Beautiful boy.”

“I’m hardly a boy, Giles, and I’ve never been beautiful. Certainly not now.”

He opened his eyes; Xander's eye was shut and his face was tight. “You’re beautiful if I say you’re beautiful. I’m the Senior Watcher and what I say goes.” He bit Xander's lip and nibbled down his neck. “And you’re half my age. God, they’re going to be so _jealous_ when I take you back to Maxim’s. I’m going to show you off. _Beautiful_ boy.” He thrust again, hard, and Xander whimpered, and locked his legs around Giles. “Can’t last much longer, Xander...”

“So don’t,” and Xander's teeth were in his ear lobe, Xander's nails in his back, and pleasure hit him like a morningstar. He managed to remember his manners well enough to get a hand between them to Xander's cock, but Xander seemed to be right there with him, giving two sharp gasps and raising enough sparks this time for the New Year’s Eve firework display complete with military band.

God, his brains _were_ addled. And he didn’t care.


	6. In Which Giles and Xander Look At Other Things

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Giles is telling the truth about the British Museum and the British Library, and the objects within.

“God.”

“Mm.”

“No, you’re a god.”

“Mm?”

“If I’d known you were that good, I’d have been here years ago.”

“Flattery,” said Giles rather muzzily, “will get you...”

“Back here for more?”

“Not any time in the immediate future.” There was a silence, in which he began to be uncomfortable. That had been embarrassingly fast; Xander deserved better. “I, I, I’m afraid that’s no more than the simple truth. My refractory period is likely to, to be a lot longer than yours. The spirit is more than willing but the flesh needs a lengthy rest.”

The silence continued until he couldn’t bear it, and turned his head to squint at Xander. If Xander were likely to... If Xander hadn’t thought of that, if he wouldn’t want to do it again, then oh God, please, let him say so and go now, before Giles dared to give way to the hope which had been banging on his heart and demanding entry.

“God. I thought... I thought for an awful moment that you didn’t _want_ to do it again.”

He flailed an exhausted hand over to find Xander's. “I would love to do it again. And again and again and again, ideally. I just can’t do it again _soon_. Sorry.”

“Do you think I _care_?” And actually, Xander sounded rather insulted. Hurt.

“Xan, you’re half my age, it stands to reason that you’ll want...”

“Can I remind you that I had a fairly lengthy relationship with Anya?”

“Well, yes, I was, I was thinking of that, apart from anything else. I, I imagine she set the bar rather high.”

Xander looked at the ceiling. “Anya had a _checklist_. On a _clipboard_. It was fun, but sometimes a bit... exhausting. I think I came relatively young to the idea that sometimes, actually, you _don’t_ want to have sex. You just want to watch a movie, drink a beer, eat some chips... Giles, I’m not _that_ dense. Yeah, you’re older than me. Quite possibly I’ll want more sex than you do, but I’ve still got the same two hands I had this morning. Oh, and I’ve found the other lube, it’s under my knee. Come to that, you’ve got the same two hands _you_ had this morning and you had some ideas about mirrors which I liked the sound of. You don’t want to have sex with me, I can get off in the shower same as before, or if you’re willing and not...” Giles heard him swallow the word ‘able’, tactfully, “not ready for another go yet, there are things other than fucking, aren’t there?”

He opened the door and hope stampeded inside, knocking over the furniture and scuffing the paintwork. “‘True, oh king.’”

“I mean, we don’t know, do we? I don’t actually know how much is enough for _you_. For all I know, your sex drive is way higher than mine. For all I know, I’m your mid-life crisis and you’re gonna be looking for more or less constant hot and cold running sex.”

“I rather like the sound of that. I’m a bit past a mid-life crisis, I had a car for that, the traditional way, but there’s nothing to say I can’t have another one. Constant hot and cold running sex, you say?” Actually, his body _was_ rather liking the sound of it, more than he expected. It wasn’t ready for another go, not by a long stretch, but it was definitely making plans.

“ _More or less_ constant. Not constant. I may be young but I need a day off occasionally. I’ll take you to see a movie instead? I’ll even let you choose the movie sometimes – those foreign language ones with subtitles.”

“I could, I could take you to the museum. And the library.”

Xander wrinkled his nose.

“Wouldn’t you like to see the Private Case in the British Library? I’ve, I’ve got access rights.”

“What’s the Private Case?”

“It’s the national porn collection.”

Xander's head came up off the pillow. “What!”

“The British Library has an extensive porn collection. And, and the British Museum had, had the Secretum, although they’ve broken up most of the collection now and put the exhibits on display generally. But I can get access to the list, find out where they all are. A collection of, um, priapic objects. I think you would like to see the Warren Cup, that’s on display.”

“Priapic objects?”

“Dildoes, among other things. Historical artefacts. Stone. Wax. Bone. And the Warren Cup, that’s, that’s a Roman silver cup decorated with a couple of men having sex, and somebody watching them.”

“Oh God, I think I’ve just invented a new kink. I’ll go if you promise I needn’t buy a guidebook.”

“We probably can’t afford a guidebook. Entry to the museum is free but I expect they’ll make that back on the guidebook. So if you have invented Not-having-a-guidebook kink, it’s not a problem.”

“Idiot. I was thinking more that we could go, and you could tell me what I was looking at. In detail. In your best library voice. What? Why are you looking at me like that? I reckon it would be hot.”

Giles frowned at him. “There would be a test afterwards, you realise. And if you didn’t remember what I’d told you,” he let his voice drop ominously, “I would have to punish you.”

Xander sighed happily. “Yeah. Deal. Museum porn, _so_ what Xander wants. I just didn’t know I wanted it.”

“You know that there’s a Phallus Museum in Iceland? It has specimens from various Icelandic mammals.”

“Sounds like they haven’t enough to do in Iceland. And that’s not the sort of thing I had in mind. I was thinking more about you showing me the porny museum stuff and telling me about it and how it was used and who by and what for and ideally with the hands on demonstrations...”

“The hands-on... You want to have _sex_ in the _British Museum_? I never realised you were such an exhibitionist – they have a _really_ comprehensive security system, everybody would see. We’d be arrested and I’m not sure I have the contacts any more to get away with it.”

“Hey, I’m not proud. I’m not British either, I probably don’t have the right papers for sex in the British Museum, I’ll settle for any museum.”

“You want to have sex in a museum.”

“Can picture it,” said Xander dreamily. “You bending me over the display cabinet. You’ve got a collar and tie on, and a tweed jacket. Sweaty hands squeaking on the glass, and the cabinet bumping and rocking, and reflections in the glass of the cabinet opposite. I can see it.”

So could Giles, and it was giving him the distinct impression that whatever idea he’d had about his refractory period was an extreme over-estimate and that he wasn’t half as old as he’d been feeling.

It occurred to him that the man beside him was a competent joiner, who could, no doubt, build a display cabinet. A solid display cabinet, capable of supporting the weight of two rather large men.

It occurred to him that his office had space for such a cabinet, and that he had a collection of artefacts which ought to be safely stored.

It occurred to him that the bookcase in his office was a large second hand one with glass doors, in which he could see his own reflection.

Mid-life crisis. Hot and cold running sex. He turned on his side and flung an arm across Xander. Tomorrow they were going to the DIY Superstore. They needed a display cabinet.

“What are you wearing while I’m wearing tweed and a tie? And I’m telling you now, some of the time I want to be the one bending over the display cabinet.”

From the way Xander's eye lit up, it didn’t appear to be a problem.


End file.
